


The stuff of nightmares

by everythingremainsconnected



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-CIA, Seriously bad dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 11:25:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9893945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingremainsconnected/pseuds/everythingremainsconnected
Summary: Is it any wonder that Amanda has bad dreams after everything that's happened?





	

Amanda missed easy dreams. Like ones where she was flying, or driving a car off a cliff, or the ones where she had superpowers. Even the anxiety dreams about having no teeth or endless pararibulitis attacks were preferable to the ones that haunted her now.

They started with the faces of the men she killed, accompanied by their screams. There were so many screams. 

The explosions that had blown apart the holding facility played through on terrifying slow motion and she held her breath, waiting for the wall of sound to hit her. Waiting for the heat and smoke to burn her lungs and fill her eyes with ash. Waiting to be thrown back a dozen yards. The plumes of fire belched outward and rolled toward her and she couldn’t move, couldn’t run – 

She tore out of her sleeping back with a gasp. Sweat made her hair stick to her face and neck and she couldn’t get enough air. Cool night breezes caressed her as she panted. Eventually Amanda groaned and slouched over to rest her head on her knees. The images would fade. The memories would fade. Her breath eventually slowed and she scraped her hair off her sweaty shoulders. 

The boys were nearby in their own sleeping bags, Martin closest to her, utterly undisturbed by Amanda’s episode. She watched their sleeping faces bathed in moonlight. The lives she had taken and the destruction she had caused was all for them. Her family. She couldn’t regret that she had saved them, wouldn’t ever regret that, even if it meant she’d never sleep the night through again. 

Amanda crawled out of her sleeping bag and went to the van for water. She gulped it down, relishing the coolness down her throat. She splashed a little across her face and neck with a sigh. Looking back over the Rowdies she saw Martin twitching in his sleep. As she watched, the twitching became thrashing. He started to choke. 

Amanda ran over and dodged his fists to shake him. “Martin! Wake up! _Wake up_!” 

Martin’s eyes flew open. He sat up and sucked in air desperately, still fighting the nightmare. 

“You’re awake. They can’t get you!” Amanda tried. “They can’t get you.” 

Amanda had her hands on his shoulders and searched his face waiting for the man, not the nightmare, to respond. After a few panicked moments Martin finally saw Amanda right in front of him. He pulled away, his eyes distant. It was unnerving how quickly he brought the walls up around himself. 

Sitting back on the end of his sleeping bag, Amanda waited for her racing heart to slow. Trying to wake up two hundred-odd pounds of terrified man was no easy feat. Long moments passed before Amanda looked at Martin out of the corner of her eye. 

“Mine are about the explosion. And the guys I killed.” She said quietly. The water bottle she’d gotten from the van was nearby; she’d dropped it in her panic to get to him. She passed it to Martin and he drank most of it. “I can hear their screams. They make me feel sick every time.” 

Still Martin said nothing. He stared out over the fields they were camped in. 

“I get it. You don’t talk much. But you’re not the only one who can’t sleep.” 

Martin finally looked at Amanda and saw her haunted face. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply before passing it to her. “I can feel everything they ever did to me.” 

Amanda smoked as she listened. 

“The cages gave us a shock every time we touched the bars. There were Tasers, and cattle prods, and hot irons, every time we screwed up an experiment.” Martin took the cigarette back. “Most times when I close my eyes,” he blew a long stream of smoke into the air, “I’m still in the cage.” 

“I’m sorry.” Amanda whispered. Guilt was the new undercurrent of her life, guilt about killing and about being too late to save her family before they’d been hurt. Some nights, it drowned her. “We got to you as fast as we could-” 

“Hey.” Martin cut her off. “It’s coz of you we’re still alive.” He looked at her then, his intense stare offering her a lifeline. “The only reason I survived the cages this time was coz I knew that you and Vogle were free.” Martin saw tears trickle down Amanda’s face. He moved to sit right beside her and put an arm around her. As he pulled her in close Martin couldn’t tell if it was for her comfort or his. “Thanks for waking me up.” 

“Sure.” Amanda sniffed. “So the nightmares never stop?” 

“No,” Martin said quietly, “but at least now there’s good things to wake up to.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic can stand alone but if you're interested this situation is referenced in another fic of mine: [Even in the suburbs, everything remains connected](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9150766/chapters/20789665). I'm also on [Tumblr](https://everythingremainsconnected.tumblr.com/), come say hi!


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